Chris Hedges: NDAA Lawsuit Update

Sierra Adamson
interviews Chris Hedges at the hearing for the second court
of appeals in the Hedges v Obama NDAA lawsuit. Hedges
explains what has happened in the lawsuit to date, the next
steps and what he sees in America's upcoming future.

Posted
February 09, 2013

NDAA May Already Be
Detaining Americans

Activist
Heavyweights Convene Against NDAA

After a
court hearing over the 2012 NDAA in Manhattan on
Wednesday, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges appeared on a
panel of activists who are suing the Obama administration
over its attempt to claim the right to indefinitely hold
U.S. citizens in military detention.

The group convened to discuss
the state of the lawsuit. Joining Hedges were these
co-plaintiffs: Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel
Ellsberg; Revolution Truth Executive Director Tangerine
Bolen; journalist and U.S Day of Rage founder Alexa O’Brien;
and Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal. They
were joined by legal counsel Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran.

For a second panel on the
“broader context of the case,” Hedges, Ellsberg and Bolen
remained and were joined by filmmaker Michael Moore, NSA
whistle-blower Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack, an attorney
for CIA whistle-blower John Kiriakou and a director of the
Government Accountability Project.

Natasha Lennard of Salon.com
and Matt Sledge of The Huffington Post moderated the
discussion, which was organized by
StopNDAA.

Part 1

Said Carl Mayer: “In broad terms, the stakes
I think are very high, because what our case comes down to
is, are we going to have a civil justice system in the
United States, or a military justice system? The civil
justice system is something that’s ingrained in the
Constitution and was always very important in combating
tyranny and building a democratic society. And what the NDAA
is trying to impose is a system of military justice that
allows the military to police the streets of America, to
detain U.S. citizens, to detain residents in the United
States, in military prisons. And I say that probably the
most frightening aspect of the NDAA is that it allows for
detention, quote, ‘until the end of hostilities.’ We’re now,
by my count, at day 4,163 of this war, which is an
open-ended war against al-Qaida, the Taliban, and now it’s
defined as ‘associated forces’ in the NDAA.”

We ask readers to play a proactive role and click
the "Report link [at the base of each comment] when
in your opinion, comments cross the line and become
purely offensive, racist or disrespectful to others.

In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)